Some argue that there is a certain art to science. And while the strength of that metaphor is open for debate, there is no question about the value of scientific inquiry in explaining countless aspects of creative works and even the development of creativity itself as a part of the human experience.
Add one more colorful example to the long list:
An improvement in analytical technology has shed new light — a very thin laser beam, to be precise — on ancient uses of pigments. In so doing, we’re learning that the knowledge required to make and apply natural dyes to objects existed nearly 1,000 years earlier than what was previously thought to be the case.
Writing at Scientific American, Katherine Harmon details the refinement of antiquities analysis that has progressed, thankfully, beyond the need to physically remove samples from the artifact in question for analysis. Microscopic testing of samples in place brings the benefit of maintaining the integrity of the artifact. And, according to the article and as published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, such in-situ testing techniques have improved markedly, broadening our knowledge of our past as a result.
The current findings relate to an Egyptian leather quiver, dated to approximately 2,000 B.C., whose coloration likely represents the oldest known application of natural dyes. Comparable applications were previously believed to date to about 1,200 B.C.
The pushing back in time of the appearance of this specialized knowledge has implications not just for the craftsmanship and applied skill itself, but on the industry and patterns of trade as well that were likely involved in getting the necessary raw materials from one place to another.
And the research team, working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is eager to ply their trade on even more and even older antiquities in their collection. Subsequent analysis may determine that the appearance of natural pigmentation know-how goes back even further in time, which no doubt would be for them another discovery to dye for.
Photo courtesy of givepeasachance, via Flickr
